Team Electric Duke Gears Up For Disney

Staff photo (b&w) by BUDDY NORRIS - Members of Gloucester High's electric vehicle racing team include, from left, Andy Gardiner, Marianne Hedrick and Tommy George. They are looking under the hood of the truck that the team won last spring as part of the prize for first place in the Electric Vehicle Grand Prix in Richmond.

November 13, 1997|By MATHEW PAUST Daily Press

GLOUCESTER — Team Electric Duke wants to go to Disney World.

Not just to have fun but to participate in the international high school electric vehicle competitions there next month.

Gloucester High School's electric vehicle racing team, which won the national championionship in March at Chandler, Ariz., has been invited to the Disney World event but must raise about $8,000 for food, lodging, air fare and for somebody to haul its battery-powered car, Electric Duke, to Orlando and back.

Team adviser Robert Healy, said Virginia Power, a co-sponsor of the event, is also contributing cash to help Team Duke make the trip.

But a public fund-raising effort will begin with a clam chowder sale Saturday in Bena, sponsored by the Abingdon Ruritan Club.

If Team Duke can raise enough money to enter the event, its entry again will be the converted 1983 Mercury Lynx that has progressed from its first race in 1995 to make Gloucester's the hottest electric vehicle team in the country.

Sometime this school year, however, Team Duke would like to build a new race car, a project that also will require donations - as will another trip to the national championship in Arizona in February, Healy said.

"We've been very fortunate that this community has supported us so generously, and we hope that this support will continue," he said.

This year's 10-member team was hand-picked by Healy and Toby Calloway, who teach the high school's automotive mechanics and electric vehicle technology courses, from about 1,900 students in the school.

Three members are veterans, having served on last year's team. They are David Craft and Lucas Smith, both sophomores, and senior Andy Gardiner. They are joined this year by sophomores Marianne Hedrick and Martin Tribble, juniors Josh Bunting, Tiffany Harvey and Jonathan Moran, and seniors Tommy George and Ryan Jenkins.